I'm Not a Special Interest

I take it back, I'm not one to lobby government to help me out at the expense of other citizens. Since I bought my car last year, I've put 30,000 miles on it. That's 82 miles a day, or about an hour and a half of driving. Despite my long commutes to work (45 mintes), theater (25 minutes) and church (20 minutes), I not only denounce consumer price bullying, but support a gas tax. Here's why:

After adjusting for inflation, Americans now spend some 35 cents less per gallon of gasoline than they did in 1950.

Don't worry there's more:

Increased gasoline prices would have spurred more rapid development of fuel-efficient automobiles and alternatively fueled vehicles such as electric cars.

and more:

Air pollution would have been reduced significantly

and it's not just for hippies:

The Federal treasury would have received more than $250 billion over the past 12 years [with a 30 cent tax]. These funds could have been used to reduce the deficit or to address other critical needs, such as rebuilding America's transportation infrastructure.

There also the reasons I've mentioned before of less behavior distortion and reduced traffic deaths.

Importance of the Economy on Human Life

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the successive end to the Cold War, I'd like to make a brief comparison on the impact communism and capitalism have had on human life. According to the Black Box of Communism, direct governmental take over of a national economies has resulted in 100 million deaths. That is equal to the number of dead from World War I and World War II combined. However, the impact of capitalism is not one of destruction, but of creation. The emergence of the free market, which in turn allowed for the Industrial Revolution, brought about the largest increase in prosperity ever seen in human history. The population of the world had been relatively constant, at about half a billion, until this increasing wealth has brought another 6 billion people into the world. I not only thank unhindered human industry for more life, but also for a better life.

DISH, Texas

Here's the story behind the name of the town:

The municipality was previously named after its founder, Landis Clark, who incorporated it in June 2000 and served as its first mayor. Clark was beaten by one vote in the Spring 2005 election by Bill Merritt.

In exchange for renaming the town, all residents of the town have received free basic television service for ten years and a free DVR from DISH Network. There was no formal opposition to renaming Clark; twelve citizens attended the council meeting to support the measure.

Don't tell Ed Helms, but I didn't pay anything for Harrison, Ohio.

Love Your Spouse as Your Neighbor

Recently I heard some good advice from a friend's Google shared item (are you still not sharing?). It was about how married couples often treat strangers better than they treat the one person they have vowed to love. My first instinct is to say I think that's bad, but my actions are probably a better measure of my true beliefs. I need to understand why I in my head, which seems to be stronger than my heart, I act this way.

After a fun show at the theater last night, I got the chance to talk with some audience members and I really enjoyed it. On the ride home, I felt the need to continue the conversation, but my wife was busy watching Rihanna's interview with Diane Sawyer (she loves human interest stories). Then it hit me, I selfishly love interacting with strangers, especially ones that want to interact with me. For the low low price of a couple minutes of polite questions, these people will walk away with a positive opinion of me. My wife on the other hand, has a lot more information. One conversation with her has less impact on her opinion of me because it is one of many.

But don't worry, this is a confession, not a justification. If it's inexpensive to gain the approval of strangers, then I'm probably getting what I paid for. Random people forget me as quick as they met me. My wife's admiration, because it is based on many interactions, is more valuable. Her opinion of me is not based on the me I want people to see, but the real me who puts his dirty clothes on the back of the couch, rarely does dishes, and probably spends too much time blogging. The solution is to recognize that cheap praise, is just that, cheap.

Emptying the Bottle: Early-November '09 (II)

Here is a summary of the Google shared items from worthwhile sites I've found lately:

• free trade keeps you from spending $10,000 on a crappy suit [picture]
• decreasing importance of physical labor strength and its impact on families
• house flies carrying banner ads [video]
• the trade off between murders and suicides
• neat way to tell comic book stories [videos]
• local improv over the radio
• being a complainer makes you more perceptive
• the value of hiring ugly people
• dolphins understand scarcity
• sneezes make people afraid of everything
  

Phillies Lose Globally

Just a few minutes ago the New Yankees beat out the Philadelphia Phillies in game 6 of the World Series. After the game I noticed the players were wearing championship merchandise with their logo on it. This got me thinking, what would happen if this was game 7 and they didn't know who would win? Answer: they would make two versions and shred the products of the losing team. Seems like a waste to me and apparently to the NFL:

They will be shipped Monday morning to a warehouse in Sewickley, Pa., near Pittsburgh, where they will become property of World Vision, a relief organization that will package the clothing in wooden boxes and send it to a developing nation, usually in Africa.

Sadly, even in third world countries, the Phillies still lost.

Supply and Demand for Husbands

Surprisingly, some women in Russia are lobbying their government to legalize polygamy because "half a good man is better than none at all":

"Friends of mine in Siberia told me that their friends were lobbying parliament to legalise polygamy," she says. "I always knew that there were men who like the idea of polygamy, but what I found fascinating was that women were also in support."

So is the recession going to turn the good burghers of Tunbridge Wells into polygamists? It's unlikely. But it remains the case that the reasons why men – and, even more interestingly, women – are advocating polygamy in Russia and Mongolia are as much about economics as they are about sex. The critical issue is demography. The Russian population is falling by 3% a year – and there are 9 million fewer men than women. Nationalists, such as the eccentric leader of the Liberal Democratic party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, claim that introducing polygamy will provide husbands for "10 million lonely women" and fill Mother Russia's cradles.

As a libertarian Christian this is one of those tough issues for me. I want to give people the freedom to chose their best life, but I wonder if they know what their best life is.

Get Rich Slowly

As of yesterday my wife and I are 100% debt free. In one year we paid 30% of a teacher and social worker's income to knocked out my student loans. Now we can start working on the rest of our financial plan:

• 2009: pay of student loans
• 2010: fund 3 months expenses emergency fund
• 2011: buy a townhouse with 20% down
• 2011: have some babies
• 2012: begin savings for college/pension supplement
• 2020: move into house to fit all 3.5 kids
  
• 2030: begin handing out college tuition
  
• 2050: pay off house completely
  
• 2050: retire, collect Social Security (or not), play with grand kids
  
• 2070: sell the house and move with my old lady to a "home" that can wipe our drool
  
• 2085: die driving a motorcycle on the open road while smoking a Cuban cigar in Brazil
  

With all this talk of savings it got me looking into how much I'll actually have to set aside, especially once Traci starts to stay home with the kids. I've talked before about how the stock market is so complex that it is essentially random. What this means for the average person is that stock market is for long term, not short term saving. Historically there’s an 55% chance that the stock market will give a 10% return over one year. There’s an 85% chance over a decade. But, there is a 100% chance of earning that return over a 30 years. Here's a resource for calculating how much you have to save/invest each month to reach your goals. For example, you have to only have to invest $442.38 a month in the stock market at 10% over 30 years to reach a million dollars! I'm looking forward to sitting down with a professional financial adviser in the near future to see if my opinions, which are a combination of my economics background and financial radio talk show host Dave Ramsey, make sense in the real world.

Emptying the Bottle: Early-November '09

Here is a summary of the Google shared items from worthwhile sites I've found lately:

• majority of the executives whose salaries were to cut have left already
• President George Washington stopped this little known almost revolution
• scientific support for the hard tests I give and the time spent going back over it
• common cup communion during the flu season, what's a Christian to do?
• murderer/kidnapper sues victim from prison
• French court convicts Church of Scientology of fraud
• how to deal with "too much choice"
• my old church gets featured in a photo blog
• the grass is always greener, even when you can pay someone to mow it for you
• why the public option is not the answer
  

The Market Knows Best

One of the main complaints against capitalism is the unwieldy power "the market" has. Stocks go up or down seemingly at random, speculative bubbles burst affecting even those not investing, businesses distort prices to victimize consumers, etc. These all too often misunderstandings of the free market forget that "the market" is simply a result the combined preferences of consumers and relative scarcity. Gold is more expensive than iron because the collective preferences of buyers prefer the attractiveness of gold. Anytime the government tries to regulate these prices (taxes, subsidies, minimum wage, etc) they confuse the information embedded in them. What's most amazing is the combined wisdom of market agents can give us a lot of information even before we know what it is. Here's a great example from an old college professor of mine:

We provide evidence on the speed and accuracy of price discovery by studying stock returns and trading volume surrounding the crash of the space shuttle Challenger. While the event was widely observed, it took several months for an esteemed panel to determine which of the mechanical components failed during the launch. By contrast, in the period immediately following the crash, securities trading in the four main shuttle contractors seemingly singled out the firm that manufactured the faulty component. We show that price discovery occurred without large trading profits and that much of the price discovery occurred during a trading halt of the firm responsible for the faulty component. Finally, although we document what are arguably quick and accurate movements of the market, we are unable to detect the actual manner in which particular informed traders induced price discovery.

In other words, the market was able to figure out what went wrong before the scientists did.